Disclaimer: the posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.

Saturday, February 04, 2012

LITTLE ALBERT

Little Albert

Researchers placed a rat next to a baby called Little Albert.

At the same time, the researchers produced a series of loud, frightening clangs.

This was repeated many times.

The baby cried.

The baby started to fear other furry things like dogs.

The researchers conditioned the baby to experience certain fears but did not attempt to decondition the baby.

John Watson

These experiments were carried out by psychologist John Watson in 1920.

The experiments were part of Watson's attempt to prove that infants are infinitely malleable.

The experiment is mentioned in many textbooks.

Little Albert

It is believed that Little Albert was Douglas Merritte, the son of a nurse who worked at the Johns Hopkins University, where the experiments were carried out.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Watson himself states in the 1913 "Behaviorist Manifesto":

"Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness."

Let me repeat that bit:"Introspection forms no essential part of its methods..."

Science divorced of empathy and the soul.

That is, behaviorist investigation is a form of brutality. The pain and feelings of the experimental subject are incidental. The subject merely a black box, a machine, whose behavior is to be predicted and altered by observation and manipulation of input-output responses.

This approach is of course facile and stupid.

But worse, it is utterly brutal and abhorrent. Not as monstrous as some of the human experimentation carried out by the Nazis and Japanese during WWII, but having the same essential pitiless characteristics.

It is nigh on impossible to understand complex systems, except at the most useless and superficial levels, without a deep understanding of their internal organization. (Watson worked on the relationship between myelinization and learning in rats, so clearly he had some interest in internal structure.)

This is true whether you're talking about a VLSI ASIC or a mammalian brain. VLSI, for instance, normally has internal self-test circuits scattered all around for precisely this reason.

When dealing with the human mind, empathy is crucial. Not just to remain human and avoid inflicting unnecessary pain, but as an aid to understanding. We are still very far from the point where we can read a man's dreams from fMRI scans.

Watson still comes out looking better than BF Skinner. Look at what he did to his own daughter. His own child.

Anyway, ignoring the science and looking at it in human terms, it's simpler.

Watson abused those weaker than himself for his own selfish purposes because he believed he could get away with it.

Otherwise, whatever reasons this obvious death cult member gives as to why he's abusing children - he's death cult, he'll say anything!

Long and short: if you're not death cult there is no high-minded reason that makes it okay to abuse children; and if you are death cult, you don't need a reason, high-minded or otherwise.

Death Cult aside, Watson's justification for abuse ("no introspection" etc) could, with but the most minor or tweaks, comfortably be applied of every branch of science.

Three cheers! Thank God we've thrown down religion and replaced it with science. We can all look forward to a golden future of... what was it again? Ah yes - "the prediction and control of behavior". Fantastic, there's nothing I'd like better than to be predicted and controlled.